Harley's Knight
by TheWolfofthePalatine
Summary: As his bond with Batman begins to fray, Nightwing finds himself pursuing a relationship with one of the Bat Family's sworn enemies; Harley Quinn. CONTAINS ADULT SCENES AND CONTENT!
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

BE WARNED, this story will contain adult scenes and content of a sexual nature.

While my idea was to focus on a sexual relationship between Nightwing and Harley Quinn, I also had an idea for a wider story arc that involved Dick's relationship with Damian, and so that will play into this as well. I'll be using characters and ideas from all over the DC Universe, criss-crossing New52 and old continuity to suit my needs; but if anyone's interested, this story would roughly take place shortly after the Night of the Owls, about a year after Bruce Wayne took back the role of Batman from Dick.

I hope you guys enjoy and please leave feedback! This one's gonna' take some work...

**UPDATE: I had a problem with the URL for this story so had to re-upload the first chapter. Sorry for any confusion that may cause!

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

Robin Rises

Gotham lay sprawled out from horizon to bleak horizon, splayed open and stewing in her own rancid filth like a two-dollar crackwhore in a Bludhaven brothel. She had always been an insatiable, ravenous mistress whose infernal appetites had swallowed up the souls of so many innocent bystanders over the years. Even Superman stayed well away for the most part; and to Dick Grayson, standing vigilant atop the old GCPD building on the south side of the city, that alone said all that needed to be said. Tonight, though, Nightwing – the first Boy Wonder, so many lifetimes ago – could feel the city around him settle into a repose that almost felt…serene. The screeching of tires and police sirens on the streets below seemed almost numbed in the midsummer night's air. The lights twinkling over the city almost appeared beautiful beneath a thick canopy of dark, foreboding cloud that for once was not lit up by the ominous presence of the ever-vigilant Bat signal. Even the air felt less toxic, less charged with danger and electricity; standing atop that building and gazing out over the sea of rooftops that made up Gotham City, Dick Grayson almost…almost…felt at relative calm. It was as if the city had taken a deep breath, and was holding it now as she nervously awaited the next chapter in her dark history. What, or _who_, that chapter was, Dick could make no guess as to. That night his mind was on other things.

He was suddenly overcome by a yawn that caused him to shut his eyes and lean back against the dull grey façade of the police station. His statuesquely toned stomach muscles rippled and bulged underneath the tight-fitting spandex Nightwing costume that he still _hadn't quite_ gotten used to wearing again yet. He'd forgotten, for instance, just how snug it felt to wear – particularly, to his chagrin, around the groin area. He'd taken off the Cape and Cowl little less than a year ago at this stage, returning the mantle of Batman – '…more a cross to carry than a mantle,' Dick had admitted to Alfred some time after – to his mentor and adoptive father, the billionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne. The Batman costume had been far bulkier, far heavier than his old Nightwing costume – it was built for pure bludgeoning aggression, not gymnastics, tightropes, traps and trapezes. With the air whipping up around him at this height if Dick closed his eyes he almost felt naked in comparison to the Batman suit he'd adorned for nearly four years. This, he assured himself, was all the better for him; he was not a hard-hitting bear like Bruce. He relied on his speed and gymnastics to get him by – his Nightwing suit was better at that than the Batsuit.

_Still_, Dick thought to himself, settling down into a crouch on the ledge of the rooftop after his yawn, _it _could_ do with some adjustments around the crotch. I'll have Alfred see to it when I get back._

There was suddenly a rush of static in his earpiece, causing Dick to grimace and shoot a hand up to his right ear in order to adjust the frequency on the little Wayne Enterprises-manufactured radio receiver. As he adjusted his earpiece, he began to make out a familiar voice amidst the static and interference. _I'll have to complain to Bruce about his company's tech. Again. Oh, I'm sure he's gonna' love that_.

'Bird Watcher, repeat, do you copy? O here with update.'

'Go ahead, O, Bird Watcher copies,' Dick responded coolly, making the final adjustments to his earpiece and replacing his right hand on the edge of the building, fingers curled around the side. He felt the muscles in his lower legs tighten and tense, his feet digging themselves into the cold stone of the building. His heart began to pound harder and faster in anticipation of his reaction. One way or the other, Babs sounded on edge – that meant she had a location for him. That meant he was about to move out.

'Twenty on Baby Bird confirmed at Seamus McCarthy Guinness Warehouse in the Bowery.'

'_Baby Bird_?' Dick had to fight to suppress a grin. 'I'm sure he's _really_ fond of that codename. Did you come up with that?'

He heard a rush of static as Babs sighed in frustration on the other end of the line. 'Bird Watcher, focus! Baby Bird is surrounded and in need of assistance. You wanted to do this one off the books, fine, but that means you do it properly – if you can't handle it, I'm calling in Blackbird. Not taking any chances with this one.'

Dick opened his mouth, but then bit his tongue. She'd hurt him, yeah – how could she doubt that he could handle this? More to the point, how could she threaten him with…_him_? He swallowed back his pride and nodded, as if she could see him. 'O. I know,' he said resolutely to the night-time air, 'It wasn't Blackbird who took him under his wing; it was _me_. This is my dance. The only partner I need for it is in the Bowery.'

She paused before replying. That, Dick realised, was all-important. 'I know, Bird Watcher. Just bring him home. I know there's friction between you and Blackbird right now but…you know what it would do it him if…if anything…'

'…I know. Bird Watcher is on the move.'

'Copy that. Oracle out.'

Dick took in a deep breath, pausing for just a moment after his line to Babs went dead, and then closed his eyes…

…and leaned forwards.

The night air caught him and started howling all around him, and when he opened his eyes up again the streetlights of Gotham were racing up to meet him. Dick grinned, and slid his line shooter from his belt. _Man, it's so good to be back_.

He took aim at the abandoned husk that was once the ACE Chemicals building and fired without looking, waiting patiently for the line to grow taught and snag him along with it, carrying him straight to the rooftop. With both hands he grabbed at the lip of the roof and calmly and confidently did a front flip onto solid ground, then took off at a sprint over the full surface area of the roof before diving off the other side, reaching for his line shooter and firing off another line at the next building. The city whirled and whizzed around him, passing by in a black-and-yellow blur of old stone and cheap yellow streetlamps, the snarling faces of the city's famous gargoyles whipping past him as he propelled himself through the city.

The Bowery stood right next to Gotham's dockyard as one of the oldest parts of the city. Since the turn of the previous century it had been home to Gotham's not-inconsiderable Irish population and, as so many of these stories go, remained a hotbed of petty organised crime that had been dominated since the early 1920s by two overgrown and perpetually feuding crime families – the Murphys and the O'Malleys. The GCPD had never quite worked out for definite what had started the feud, and like every other God forsaken part of Gotham's history, the origins were steeped in folklore and urban legend. The most likely, the story that Dick personally gave the most credit to, had its roots in the Irish struggles against British imperial rule in the years preceding both family's arrival in the United States. The legend went that a Murphy had fought on the government's side during Ireland's little-known and littler-talked-about civil war, while an O'Malley had fought with the rebels against the government. When the rebels surrendered, the O'Malley family fled to America where they hoped to make a new life for themselves in Gotham City. Some years after that, the Murphy family – headed by the son of the civil war soldier – had arrived in Gotham City and, like most other Irish immigrants, had planted his roots down in the Bowery. One thing led to another, and both families came to blows, with an O'Malley finally taking the life of a Murphy as recompense for their slights suffered during the war back home. The feud had continued, bloody and ceaseless, ever since.

_And if that's where I'm headed now_, Dick mused to himself, scrambling up the side of Gotham Central Bank and flipping over the railing on the other side of the rooftop, _it means the little psycho has gone off looking for trouble_.

The Bowery was a dark patch thrust up against the seafront on Gotham's lower east side. Over the decades it had slowly been eaten away by gentrification and urban renewal projects, making the old Irish neighbourhood barely two main streets in size, running parallel to each other and the coastline. Between both lay the Seamus McCarthy Guinness Warehouse, a now-disused storage unit that linked the two streets in the middle. As a result, it had been the sight of many brawls between the two families and their street enforcers. _Tonight_, Dick suspected, _isn't likely to be any different_.

He shot a line across the length of the Bowery, taking a chunk out of the steeple of the St. Francis Roman Catholic Church, the Bowery's tallest building. As he zipped down over the darkened, decaying alleyways of what had historically been one of Gotham's most vibrant immigrant neighbourhoods, he felt a pang of pessimism wash over him. The Bowery was now so decrepit the St. Patrick's Day parade didn't even march through it anymore; it, like many other historic areas of Gotham, had been eaten away like so much detritus, leaving only hollowed out corpses in their wake. Was that just the way things worked? The sentiment of history got washed away by the flow of time, and were left behind to rot and die? If it could happen to a city, could it happen to families too…?  
Even one as irregular and misshapen as his own?

Dick blinked and shook the thoughts from his head. _Focus, Grayson_, he scolded himself. _These may be petty muggers and shoplifters down here but you'll do the boy no good if your mind isn't in the game. Get in, get him, get out. Worry about this existential crap later._

Steeling himself, Dick unhooked from the zipline and let himself fall to the roof of the warehouse below him, landing with a carefully-timed roll to absorb the impact and hopefully dull the sound of his arrival. In the centre of the rooftop, barely visible through the crushing gloom of the night, was a skylight that Dick figured must drop into the warehouse proper. Stooping low to minimise his silhouette against the night sky, in case of any lookouts on adjacent rooftops (_Not God damn likely_), Dick crept across the corrugated iron roof to the skylight, then flattened his belly to the ground.

He almost winced – through the ultra-thin fibres of his costume he could feel the biting cold of the roof against his otherwise bare skin. _I have been out of this game for way, way too long_, he mused before peering down into the darkened warehouse's interior.

Inside he could see the tops of about two-dozen heads and caps, circling around a hooded figure in the centre of the room. As Dick squinted, one of the figures made a move to close in with the hooded figure and there was a flash of light as something metallic caught the beam from a torch. There was a muted screaming sound from within, and in that instant the light flickered over the room Dick swore he could make out a flash of red on the hooded figure's outfit. That was good enough for him.

Dick stood, took a deep breath, then jumped with both feet, smashing through the window and landing on the back of one of the circling figures, driving him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him. As soon as he felt his feet crushing the man's body to the floor Dick bent his legs and took a single leap backwards, flipping in a slow and steady arc through the air to land back-to-back with the hooded figure, who was circling wildly now, katana flashing in the dim light of the warehouse, trying to ward off the encroaching attackers.

Behind him, Dick heard Damian Wayne give a sharp tutting sound. 'Nightwing,' he said coolly, 'I should have known the Bat would send you on his behalf.'

'Nobody sent me…_Robin_,' Dick said, circling in time with Damian so as to keep his eye on as many potential attackers as possible. He hadn't realised Damian had taken the Robin costume from the Batcave. 'I'm here to bring you back.'

'Aha,' Damian replied. 'So Batman doesn't know you're here. And your recent history tells me you're like to have ensured that was the case. Oracle's in on this little escapade, might I venture?'

Before Dick could throw a comment back, he noticed Tommy Murphy – the leader of the Murphy gang – crumpled over on the far side of the room, being tended to by two of his goons. His face was a brutal mask of agony, and red blood poured fatally from a deep gash in his stomach. Dick realised it was Tommy Murphy who he'd seen Damian slash at before entering the warehouse. The boy had probably killed him.

Dick stopped circling, and raised his hands in a gesture of peace. 'You guys gotta' get him to a hospital, or he's gonna' bleed out,' Dick instructed coolly. 'I can get him there faster than any of you. Let me take him.'

'Fuck that!' a voice from behind him shouted out, 'We got Tommy Murphy, Nightbat and the Sparrow right all in the one place! Fancy that, eh?' There was a chorus of affirmation from one side of the room – the O'Malley family gang, no doubt. 'Ain't nobody leavin' here tonight without _our_ say so.'

Again, Damian tutted, and Dick heard him saw 'Sparrow. Please,' before he heard the ten year old lash out again with his katana. There was another scream, and Dick turned just in time to see the severed arm of Paddy O'Malley hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Dick barely had time to round on Damian and scream at him ('WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?') before another voice shouted, 'GET THEM!', and suddenly the entire room was a dark blur of fists, elbows, knees, baseball bats and crowbars. Dick ducked and weaved around the human tidal wave of aggression that washed him away from Damian, who was lashing out on all sides with his katana, sending up a fountain of red blood in his wake.

'Damn it,' Dick spat through gritted teeth, flipping over a thug armed with a knife and delivering an incapacitating knee to his assailant's coccyx. 'Watch your back,' he smiled, before flipping to the side away from the brick someone had just thrown in his direction. Dick recovered and lashed out with a leg, sweeping the three of four guys around him off-balance and sending them sprawling to the floor. He picked himself up just in time to dodge out of the way of a crowbar that narrowly missed his temple by about an inch, and lashed out with an open palm at its wielder's chin, knocking him out cold in one blow.

Reaching now for his twin escrima sticks, Dick sucked in a cleansing breath and forced himself to clear his mind. _Be wary of the present, Dick,_ Bruce's voice told him. _Not the past. Not the future. The here and now. See; react; stay alive._ Across the room, keeping his attackers at range with the fatal length of his Katana, Dick could see Damian fighting like a child possessed. He had to get across the room to him and get him out of there, ASAP.

Dick dispatched the next attacker with a quick shot of his escrima stick into the guy's throat, then a sweeping take-down of his legs from behind to get him to the ground, then a shot to the forehead with the other stick for good measure. He moved quickly, nimbly, his old rhythm flowing back into him as muscle memory kicked in. Suddenly, he was no longer Batman – he was _Nightwing_, and he knew it was who he had always been meant to be. He twirled with all the grace bred into him as a child in the circus, spinning himself into the middle of the room, arms outstretched to take down anybody who came within range of his escrima sticks. He ducked as a vicious-looking elbow was thrust towards the back of his head and let the attacker pass by him. Then, reacting on instinct, his leg shot out and he clipped the goon in the back of the knee, forcing him to his knees on the ground before banging both escrima sticks to both the man's temples.

Dick smiled despite his situation, and turned to the attacker immediately to his left, who was brandishing a knife towards him. 'He'll be seeing birds for a while,' Dick quipped, and jumped back sideways away from the range of the sinister-looking machete. 'Ahh, knives,' Dick tutted and shook his head, 'so overused in the criminal underworld.' Flicking one of his escrima sticks up into his right hand, he took brief aim and then threw it arcing through the air straight at the forehead of the machete-wielding thug. It struck with an ear-rending _CRACK_, and the goon's eyes went cross-eyed as he tried to take stock of what had just hit him. He fell to his knees; his eyes glazed over; then he collapsed into a crumpled mess on the floor. 'Now, THAT,' Dick said, fully aware the gangster could no longer hear. Or see. _Or likely eat meat without the aid of a straw-like implement._ 'THAT is originality. You should take notes.' As Dick reclaimed his escrima stick he sensed a figure behind him and twirled just in time to deflect a blow with a baseball bat with one of the gauntlets strapped to his wrist. 'Okay I'm sorry, it was a bad joke – he can't hear me,' Dick twirled away to the side, bent almost-double over, arms splayed out as if he was about to pounce. 'Do me a favour…' he pounced, bringing the sticks to either side of the new guy's neck and activating the tasers within them, sending over a thousand vaults of electricity coursing through every inch of the assailant's body, '…tell him that joke for me when you both wake up. You'll need something to brighten your day.'

As Dick straightened up, he saw that Damian across the room had been disarmed, and was now fighting a losing battle against seven other men. As well-trained and lethal as Damian was, he was still ten years old – seven giant Irishmen almost three times his size and weight were too much, even for him. He jumped into the air, making for the safety of a shelf that lined the wall, and leapt off of it towards the crowd of men surrounding Damian. He knocked down half of them and, in blind fury, they started throwing punches and kicks in every direction to bring their new enemy down. At least two solid shots made a connection with Dick's temple, and though he tried twisting his body mid-flight to land on his feet, the blows knocked his equilibrium out of balance. He landed awkwardly on the ankle of his right foot, and toppled, grimacing as pain shot like fire up his leg.

He hit the floor, and suddenly had the wind knocked out of him by something heavy crushing down on his stomach and chest. Dick tried to open his eyes but the pain in his head was too severe; even the dim light of the warehouse was like the fire of a thousand suns. He screamed and winced his eyes shut again, but he heard the intake of breath from the massive weight sitting on him, and instinctively thought _ground and pound_!_ Ground and pound_!

Dick brought his gauntlets up, curling his hands into fists to protect his face as, sure enough, the first of a terrifying onslaught of blows started to rain down from above. He made sure to consciously slacken his jaw, so that if a blow broke through his defence it wouldn't shatter on impact. Time seemed to slow down around him. He tried squirming with his hips underneath the elephantine weight of his hefty attacker, mind reverting back back to hand-to-hand combat 101. His attacker had mounted his stomach and was peppering him with blows; his arms could only absorb so much punishment before his muscles gave out and the blows started landing on his face. Before that happened, he had to wriggle his way back away from the attacker effectively siting on him to close his legs around the attacker's waist; from there he could regain control of the situation, bring up an escrima stick and zap this gorilla to smithereens or try and break one of the thug's arms. Dick sincerely doubted the Murphys and O'Malleys trained their boys in mixed martial arts; with luck, the big brute wouldn't realise what was happening until…

…there was a _BLAM_, and the monster's fist connected with Dick's two defending arms with such force that it drilled right through and smashed into his nose, driving his head back into the concrete. Dick's world suddenly became a hazy dream; he saw in slow-motion his attacker silhouetted in the light, saw his fist raise again to deliver a punishing blow, and somewhere, ethereally, he heard Damian give a shout of alarm.

Suddenly the light went out. A shape of purest black moved across his field of vision, and then the weight crushing his hips to the ground was gone. Dick sucked in a deep breath and rolled to the side, knowing full well he had to get back to his feet lest another one of the Irishmen try to pin him down again. Gasping for air, Dick wrestled his way onto two feet and, squinting, tried to peer through the gloom.

The two gangs were down; incapacitated, all in the blink of an eye. Damian stood, his hood down now, hair ruffled by the exertion of the fight, holding up his blood-soaked katana in the light. And behind him…

…behind him…

Dick groaned.

'Father,' Damian announced calmly, 'thank you for your ever-timely assistance. I fear Nightwing has lost a step or two since he hung up the Cowl.'

Panting, Dick leaned over with his left hand to prop himself up against the wall. His ears were ringing; he had a splitting headache and the back of his head felt eerily warm and wet, and he was almost certain his nose had been crushed into mush by the punch he had just sustained. Slowly, allowing his eyes to adjust themselves to the light, he locked eyes with the towering beast who stood erect and motionless behind Damian. Not tearing from eye contact, Dick spat a glob of phlegmy blood to the floor. Then he cleared his throat.

'This…this was _my_ fight…' he panted by way of explanation, '…I had to go after him,' his eyes flicked to Damian, who'd narrowed his at the derision in Dick's tone. 'He ran because _you_ wouldn't listen,' Dick said defiantly, 'he was _my_ responsibility!'

The black figure took a step forwards now, into the light to stand beside Damian Wayne. The bullish look on his face turned Dick's bowels to water. He felt his legs almost give way, and had to put out a right hand to grab a shelf to steady himself.

'Nightwing,' that deep, booming, commanding growl bounced off the walls and reverberated inside Dick's aching skull. '_He is my SON!_' Batman shouted, and the noise caused even Damian to jump where he stood.

The room spun wildly around Dick, and his stomach gave an ungodly, sickening heave that drove Dick to all fours. He coughed up more blood and grimaced at the sicky, coppery taste that it left in his mouth.

'He…he was _my_ Robin…' Dick heard himself say before the darkness took him.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

Family Ties

That was the night the Iceberg Lounge was bombed.

The Penguin's recent foray into semi-legitimate business had culminated that night – _How could I have forgotten…_ Dick berated himself – with a high-stakes poker tournament at the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge Casino, where most of Gotham City's wealthy elite had been invited to partake in a night of entertainment and networking. Bruce Wayne, as CEO of Wayne Enterprises, had attended – Bruce had wanted to use the opportunity to scope out the Penguin and try to gauge exactly what old Cobblepot was playing at. Part of him, Dick had known, wanted to believe that this recent turn towards the light was legitimate; on the other hand, he had been fighting with the Penguin since the days when Dick had worn the Robin costume. He knew better than to trust his old foe. So under the cover of Bruce Wayne (it was somewhat bemusing for Dick to realise that, far be it from Bruce Wayne being the secret identity of the Batman, it was becoming increasingly obvious that it was, in fact, the _Batman_ that was the secret identity of a play-act called Bruce Wayne), he had attended the poker tournament, as just another spoilt, playboy civilian.

He had been on the semi-final table, twenty thousand dollars up on the fourth card down when Oracle had called in about Dick and Damian in the Bowery. Oracle had heard Dick offer to take the injured Thomas Murphy (who, it turns out, had bled to death as a result of his injuries during the ensuing fray) to hospital, and when his offer was met with derision and violence, Babs had apparently called in for the heavy artillery. Bruce excused himself from the game (Alfred later said that Bruce had claimed he had a flight to catch; his private jet was taking him and three renowned Gotham City figure skaters to Monaco for the weekend), slipped into the Batsuit and hightailed it across town. No sooner had he arrived in the warehouse alongside Dick and Damian and the bomb had gone off, destroying the Penguin's casino and killing about twelve people, injuring dozens more.

Bruce still hadn't forgiven Dick for drawing him away.

'…I never asked him for help,' Dick was complaining, wincing as Alfred kneaded the knots out of his upper back. He'd been bedridden for almost a week now as a result of the head injury he had sustained in the fight; Alfred had been able to snap his nose back into place, but the shot to the back of the head was far more worrisome. After a week, however, with no obvious symptoms of neurological damage, Dick was starting to get antsy. Bruce was gone all hours now, tracking down the bombers of the casino and playing detective. He knew there was something going on in the city outside the four walls of his room in Wayne Manor, but nobody would tell him anything. He had started to suspect that Bruce was _intentionally_ keeping information about this case from him. 'Damian and I were doing fine on our own without him…' Dick winced again, 'ow!'

'Almost finished, Master Richard,' Alfred's calm and collected voice sounded out from behind Dick, 'you were saying?'

Dick pouted, fully wallowing in his misery. Between the agony Alfred was subjecting him to, the dull pain still present at the back of his head and the fact that he was _still_ shut up in the Manor, he felt he had earned the right. 'He's the one who drove Damian to steal the Robin costume out of the Batcave and run off looking for a fight; he _wasn't_ the one to bring him back. That was my responsibility. His God damn stubbornness just gets me…' Dick groaned as Alfred drilled his elbow down right between Dick's shoulderblades and twisted. 'Ow, Alfred! You're stronger than you look, you know that?'

That seemed to amuse Alfred ever so slightly, and he hummed – that, Dick realised, was the closest he could ever remember hearing Alfred come to actually laughing. 'Don't think I couldn't take you for a few rounds 'round the ring in my heyday, Master Richard,' Alfred returned, then leaned up from the masseuse table. 'There you are, good as new. You can sit up now.'

Dressed only in jeans and woolly socks (Alfred's insistence), Dick sat up on the edge of the table, flexing and rolling his shoulders as he felt pinpricks break out all over his back. He didn't admit it to Alfred but he had needed that. Being propped up in bed for a week wasn't exactly conductive to keeping fit and supple. Dick suddenly became aware of Alfred giving him an intense stare, and he met the gaze with narrowed, inquisitive eyes.

'Are you quite sure that it is Master Wayne who you feel angry at?' Alfred ventured and, not understanding what he was driving at, Dick remained quiet as he listened. 'And not, perhaps, Miss Gordon for calling him in the first place?'

Dick looked at Alfred, stunned by the accusation. He hadn't even thought of Babs' part to play that night in all the time he'd been bedridden; all his focus and pent up anger had been directed straight towards Bruce, for shutting him down without so much as a Thank You for locating his son. But Barbara Gordon had been the one who called in Batman. The realisation was like a bucket of ice water over Dick's head; he stood up sullenly, and thanked Alfred quietly for the massage before making his way down to the gym. He had to keep up his level of fitness or he'd be out of commission for even longer. And now he was determined to get back out there as soon as possible.

Every muscle and joint screamed at him for mercy throughout his workout. As he exerted pressure and tried his hand at a few rudimentary gymnastics moves, he felt the pain in his head start to progressively worsen. After only an hour and a half Dick collapsed onto the mat of the Wayne Manor gym and lay panting, eyes shut, sweat pouring out of him. The room seemed to swim and pulsate with each throbbing pulse from the back of his head, sending agonising shockwaves through his brain and what felt like into his very eyes. He groaned, and put a hand to his forehead. That giant of an Irishman had really done a number on him. He hadn't felt so incapable since…

'Grayson.'

Dick jolted open his eyes to see Damian standing over him, a bemused scowl colouring his ten year old face.

'Jesus!' Dick half-shouted, scrambling to his feet (and almost being bowled over by the pain in his head in the process). 'Don't sneak up on people like that!'

'Damian will do,' Damian said nonchalantly, inspecting imaginary dirt on his fingernails. Then he cleared his throat matter-of-factly and, in a flat, monotonous tone, said 'I just wanted to express my gratitude at the part you played in last night's events. Your arrival made my job significantly easier.'

'My _arrival_ probably saved your life,' Dick replied. Damian narrowed his eyes to slits.

'However it may have appeared from your vantage, Grayson, being pummelled as you were so ungracefully into the concrete, I assure you I had the matter well in hand.'

It was then the penny dropped. 'It…it was _you_…' Dick said suddenly. '_You're_ the one who sent out the call to Bruce. Not Babs.' Dick took Damian's silence for confirmation. 'But…_why_? You stole the Robin suit and snuck out on your own without telling anybody. Why would you go through all that trouble just to turn around and call your dad?'

For the first time, a flicker of uncertainty – _or, no…_vulnerability? – crossed like a shadow over Damian's face. He shifted uneasily where he stood, and then said, 'If my Father hasn't explained to you what happened, then it is safe to assume he has his reasons. Far be it for me to second-guess his decision in this regard. Now, if you'll excuse me, Titus and I are going for a walk.'

Dick hadn't noticed the giant black Great Dane standing in the doorway to the gym. 'Hiya, boy,' he said with a wave, and Titus gave a happy bark and wagged his tail in recognition. He turned his gaze back to Damian, but before he could follow up on their conversation Damian and Titus had vanished from the room, leaving Dick, head pounding, to mull over what he'd just learned.

He didn't doubt for a second there was more to Damian's little escapade than met the eye – especially given his behaviour throughout their odd little conversation. Whatever Damian had been playing at, the _real_ reason he wouldn't tell Dick had nothing to do with the fact that things between Dick and Bruce were tense right that moment. No, Damian was playing at something else, and it worried Dick that neither he, Bruce nor Alfred seemed to really have any idea what was going on in that child's life.

Bruce returned to the Batcave as the clock struck half nine that evening. Dick was sitting by the computer, dressed in his Nightwing costume, spooling through the case file Bruce had already collected on the Iceberg Lounge bombing. He heard the bestial roar of the Batmobile fill the cave, sending the bats in the ceiling into a frenzy, and knew he would soon have to contend with Bruce's rage at accessing the Bat computer without his knowledge. Whatever could be said about their relationship, Dick still had almost unlimited access to Bruce's files. He was perfectly within his rights to take a look at the bombing case – though he sincerely doubted Bruce would see it that way.

'I thought Alfred said you were resting,' Dick almost jumped at the all-too-familiar growl emanating from right behind him. Dick swallowed and forced himself not to tear his eyes from the screen.

'I'm tired of sitting cooped up in the Manor,' he said calmly, and heard Bruce sigh behind him. 'If something's going on in Gotham I want to be out there, helping.' He heard footsteps as Bruce walked around the chair over to a table where lay a collection of batarangs and other paraphernalia. Dick turned his head slightly to see him remove the Cowl and stand over the tray, motionless for a few seconds.

Then he spoke. 'You need to rest. You suffered a bad knock to the head; I can't be looking out for you the whole time out there if you suddenly suffer an episode.'

'An _episode_?' Dick stood up from his chair as Bruce turned to look at him, bright blue eyes catching the light from the screen.

'You coughed up blood and passed out shortly after taking that punch into the ground. You need to rest, and not worry about what's happening out there.'

'You don't know who it is, do you?' Dick tried changing the subject. 'Your case files…it's nothing but bad leads and dead-ends. Even the GCPD aren't making any headway. This wasn't just some gangland hit, was it?'

A shadow passed over Bruce's face, and he opened his mouth to speak, and then paused, closing it, before opening it again. 'I have my suspicions,' was all he would feed to Dick.

'Oh, come on!' Dick protested, 'don't give me that, Bruce! Don't shut me out like this! Not over looking out for Damian!'

'You put these ideas in his head,' Bruce moved with frightening agility across the platform so that he was now bearing down on Dick. Dick, straining against the throbbing in the back of his head, held firm with his gaze, planting his feet squarely in the ground. 'You had _no right_ to make him Robin while I was gone.'

'I was _Batman_,' Dick attested, 'naming a Robin _was_ my right!'

'_Not my son_!' Bruce spat, 'you had absolutely no right to put him in danger like that!'

'Me?' Dick almost scoffed, but had to remember who it was he was talking to. 'I'm not the one who slept with _Talia al'Ghul_! _Put him in danger_? You mean before or after he was made into a trained killer by the League of Assassins?'

In one swift, vicious movement, Bruce threw a lightning-fast right hook that clocked Dick right in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground. He saw stars, and his head exploded into the headache it had been fighting so bravely to suppress. At the last minute, he was able to reach out with his hands and stop his fall, but the damage had been done.

Dick knelt on all fours, eyes shut against the pain that had erupted from his jaw to the back of his head, and despite himself, gave a stifled laugh. 'Well, Bruce…I never knew you cared.'

'Dick, I…' as Dick stood to face him, he shook his head. To his surprise, Bruce went silent. His right hand was still curled into a fist, and Dick could see him visibly trembling with rage.

'I need to see Babs,' Dick said, fitting his mask over his eyes. 'Say goodnight to Damian for me.'

As Dick turned to walk away, leaving Bruce speechless in the middle of the Batcave, he had a moment of giddy satisfaction, despite the sorry state his body was in. _I am walking out on Batman right now. That's gotta' count for something._

What a change a week made. Gotham, who had been so pliant and calm when last Dick had been out on patrol, was suddenly a hive of activity. Sirens screeched and wailed from Arkham Island to the Narrows, tension hung thick and intoxicating in the air and Dick had had to switch off his broad wave radio so as to silence the ceaseless flow of GCPD dispatch call-outs. The Iceberg Lounge bombing had shown the scum of Gotham that the Penguin was weakened; and they were floating to the surface now, jostling and scrabbling for position to take advantage of his weakness and carve out their own territories. It was telling from Bruce's files on the Iceberg case that Penguin had made absolutely no effort to retaliate or hold onto his haemorrhaging territory. Something had Penguin spooked; so spooked, he had all but abandoned his enforcers on the street and was willing to let the bombing of his prized casino go without vengeance. He knew something about who the perpetrators were, and it terrified him. _More to the point_, Dick mused as he shot from rooftop to rooftop, dodging satellite dishes and telephone cables, Bruce_ knows something too. Something he's not telling me_. Dick swore under his breath. He couldn't remember the last time Bruce had intentionally withheld information about a case – it was long before Dick had donned the Cowl, however. Maybe long before that. It did not bode well for their relationship that Bruce was doing so again now.

It had been nearly eight years since the clocktower that Babs had made her roost as "Oracle" was destroyed as part of the gang war accidentally initiated by Stephanie Brown (_Another former Robin; another dead child…_ the though came unbidden to Dick and, just as quickly as it had invaded, he dispersed it). After a long hiatus, Babs decided to take back up the Oracle mantle as showrunner for Batman, Incorporated., the front Bruce had set up to financially support Batmen all over the world using the might of Wayne Enterprises. He had named Barbara Gordon the official Director of Batman, Inc., and she was given a swanky new abode on the top floor of Wayne Tower from where she had access to the files and live feeds from Batman, Inc. members all over the world. Most importantly, of course, it meant she was once again the eyes and ears of the Bat Family in Gotham City. Now, as ever, Dick alighted on the rooftop of the monolith Wayne Tower and slipped over the east side of the building where – sure enough – Babs had left a window open. Dick slid through and landed silent as a cat's shadow on the freshly-lain carpet within the well air conditioned room, and padded silently across the floor until he was standing right next to the multiple HD computer monitors that adorned the far wall. Barbara didn't even notice him – he could see maps and graphs and live video feeds reflected in her glasses, her attractive face scrunched into morose concentration, bright red hair tied back into an austere bun.

'How many times do I have to tell you I hate it when you do that?' the suddenness and calmness of her voice cracking the otherwise deathly silence caused Dick to jump, and he thought he caught sight of a faint smile flicker across Babs' face at how she'd startled him.

'Bruce Wayne,' Dick shrugged nonchalantly when he'd quite recovered. 'I learned from the best. How the Hell did you know I was here?'

Babs flashed him a smile, nakedly now. 'James Gordon,' she replied matter-of-factly. '_I_ learned from the best.'

Dick nodded, folding his arms and staring at his shoes as he grinned. 'Yeah, okay. I suppose that makes sense.'

'Bruce is also the world's greatest detective; you'd think some of _that_ may have rubbed off on you too, not just sneaking around into rooms with girls. Alone.'

Dick smiled, and looked over at Barbara. The former Batgirl had lost none of her elegance or composure, even in her wheelchair. It saddened Dick a little, the banter that still came so naturally between the two of them – sometimes, he wished things had been different…

_No_, a voice berated him in his head. _You can't start thinking like that. Life is a series of what-ifs and maybes. If you start thinking like that, then…_

Babs seemed to sense his thoughts, because she sighed deeply and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Suddenly, the warm banter between them had evaporated, and when she spoke again there was a three-foot wall of block ice separating them across the room. 'What is it that you want, Richard?' she asked sternly. 'I'm busy.'

Dick shuffled awkwardly where he stood, thrown by the suddenness of her mood shift. 'I…I wanted to say I'm sorry. About the last time I was out. If I caused you any…any awkwardness, then...'

'Any _awkwardness_?' Babs wheeled herself out from underneath the desk, and turned her chair to face him. 'You were compromised _the entire time_! You had me _lie_ to my boss only to get caught red handed running an op behind his back! Have you_ any_ idea what sort of situation that put me in? Dick, Damian is Bruce's SON! It is NOT your place to make decisions about his future! Especially…' suddenly, Babs' voice cracked, and she had to look away. '…Especially in this life. Not with…not with these risks…'

Dick swallowed hard. Suddenly, the cocky swagger he had displayed to Bruce earlier in the Batcave seemed aeons away. Babs knew better than most the price this life could demand from those who dared to walk it. Her paralysing spinal injury – inflicted at the hands of the Joker, so many years ago – was testament to that. Dick tried to put his hand on hers, to show some sympathy, but she pulled away. Dick swallowed back the lump in his throat, and turned back towards the window.

'I…I just came to say I'm sorry…had I known what Damian had been planning I would never have dragged you into it. I'm sorry, Barbara.'

Before another word could pass between them, one of the monitors Babs had surveying the city crackled into life, and the robotic drone of a police dispatch filled the air.

'Calling all cars, calling all cars, we have a 2-11 in progress, I repeat, 2-11 in progress at Gotham Savings and Loan in Midtown. Suspects are armed and extremely dangerous. Units in vicinity, code 3; identify, over.'

Dick and Babs shared a look, then Dick spun around the desk so that he could see the monitor clearly. 'This isn't just a gangland hit.'

'Nope,' Babs was already typing furiously at her keyboard, bringing up CCTV feeds from the surrounding area. 'Look, there' – she jabbed a finger at the pixelated display, where it showed masked men with what appeared to be shotguns entering through the front entrance – 'this is from…fifteen minutes ago.'

'And the call's only gone out _now_?'

Babs cocked her head. 'Looks like _something_'_s_ going on down there.'

Dick had already began backtracking his steps towards the window. 'I'm on it. Look for me on TV. I'll give you a little wave.'

'Richard…' Babs turned in her chair, and as Dick caught her eye one final time before leaping out into the cold night air, the glint in her eye reminded him of…_well. Of easier times_. '…Be careful.'

'I always am,' Dick winked, and then surrendered himself to the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Part of me worries that this chapter feels a little rushed; I was writing it in-between being busy with other stuff and determined to get it finished and get to the meat of the story, so, apologies if it comes across a little haphazard in places.

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE**

The Red & the Black

By the time Dick arrived at Gotham Savings and Loan, the GCP had cordoned off the block in a tight perimeter replete with squad cars colouring the street a wash of red and blue with their silent lights. A SWAT van was parked down the street from the main entrance, and snipers had taken up positions on every adjacent rooftop, training their scopes into the lobby of the central bank. As Dick approached, scampering over rooftops on a bearing for the building's elegant neo-Gothic façade, he saw that a tac-team was already positioning itself out front, riot shields brought to bear in the direction of the doorway.

By the first police cordon, a couple of squad cars parked at angles away from the door, he noticed a familiar figure, complete with trench coat and fedora, spark up as he discussed something with a young female lieutenant. _That's my way in_, Dick thought. _Thank you, GCPD._ He shot a line from his position on an exterior windowsill of a high-rise office block to just under the sign for the Savings and Loan bank, then zipped down over the GCPD cordon – relying on the night and his costume to shield him from prying eyes – and released when he was halfway across, landing silently behind the two GCPD officers in charge of the situation. Harvey Bullock finished lightning his cigarette and exhaled deeply, blowing out a plume of heavy smoke that seemed to linger uncertainly in the air.

'Nightwing,' he said calmly, and Dick was bemused that, for the second time that night, somebody had heard him coming. 'Figured it was only a matter of time before one o' you costumed types showed up.' He dismissed the female lieutenant with a nod, and then turned to face Dick, leaning casually against the squad car.

'Nice to see you too, Havey,' Dick replied easily. 'What's the situation?'

'Well…' Harvey scratched the back of his head and turned to face the doorway. 'We've got a dozen or so armed suspects in the lower vault with about six or seven hostages. All late-night bank workers and at least one corporate officer. A…Tori Ramirez.'

'Have the suspects made contact? Any demands?'

'Not yet,' Harvey took another long drag from his cigarette, causing Dick to almost gag on the rancid smell. 'We haven't heard a peep from them the entire time we've been here.'

'Okay…' Dick said, weighing his options. 'I'm going in. I can move quieter and more agilely than you or your boys; I'll go in via the rooftop and try to take out who I can.'

Harvey looked for a moment as if he was about to say something, but then shrugged. 'You know what you're doing,' he stamped out his cigarette beneath his shoe. 'Knock yourself out. Or, preferably, don't.'

Dick nodded, and stared up the towering height of the bank before unclipping his line-shooter from his belt and taking brief aim at a gargoyle that dominated the north-western corner, then fired. 'Going up!' he quipped as the line snagged taut, and pulled him up with it.

'Oracle, it's Nightwing, do you copy?' he whispered once he'd landed safely on the roof.

'Nightwing, Oracle, reading you five by five. Go ahead.' All whispers of their conversation just ten minutes ago had evar

'I need eyes and ears inside the Gotham Savings and Loan building. An armed gang has taken hostiles and have made no demands to the police; I'm going in to take the bad guys down.'

'Okay stand by…' a second or two passed. Then three and four more. 'Nightwing, I…I can't see inside the building. All the CCTV has been cut.'

Dick cursed, and then started to make his way over to a skylight in the centre of the roof. 'Then I'm just gonna' have to go in blind. You know what they say about kicking ass blindfolded…'

'Rich—Nightwing,' Babs' reticence caused Dick to stop dead in his tracks. 'Please be careful.'

Dick swallowed, and headed over to the skylight, prising it open and staring into the gloom below. He took a deep breath, ignoring the way his heart had just done a somersault and the constant pain in the back of his head from a week ago. 'Solid copy, Oracle,' he said after a long pause. 'Nightwing, out.'

The room below was an executive office, judging from its décor. A mahogany desk – which Dick had to avoid splashing down on as he entered from the ceiling – dominated the centre of the room, flanked by a giant oil painting of a man o' war at dock. As Dick collected himself, he noticed standing proudly by the darkened computer monitor a framed photo of a besuited woman – likely the executive who owned the office – shaking hands with…

'No _way_!' Dick laughed despite his situation, and picked up the photo to study it. 'Looking good, Kent.'

He was suddenly shaken from his good humour by the sound of muffled voices passing by the door, and he replaced the picture frame gently then sunk to the ground, creeping along the desk until he was by the far wall, next to the door. He strained his ears to listen intently, ignoring the throbbing pain still emanating from the back of his head, and, when he had contended himself that the voices had passed, he opened the door and slipped into the brightly-lit upstairs corridor.

It took him only three minutes to find the hostages. _I really need to get back in the game_, he muttered as he squatted behind the balcony railing of the main bank tellers' floor, looking at the group of tied down hostages with bags forced over their heads. Dispatching the two guards to the balcony door was easy – an escrima stick apiece to the throat, and one thousand volts later they were out like tots in the cradle.

What _didn't_ bode so well was that, as far as Dick could tell – and he'd scanned the room thrice over now, from different vantages – the hostages were completely unguarded. The doors in and out of the room had been sealed and guarded, but there were no armed suspects within the actual room where the hostages were being kept. Dick frowned, and, remaining crouched behind the elaborate floral pattern of the railing, tried to clear his head and understand the situation.

_Bruce would know what was going on_, he couldn't help but think. _Come on, Grayson, think! Where are the rest of the bad guys_? He lingered another few seconds, and then decided there was nothing for it. He'd dispatched the thugs outside; maybe one of the hostages knew where the rest of them were. He sucked in a deep breath, and bolted over the railing, landing nimbly on the polished marble tiles below. He made one last sweep of the room with his eyes before crossing the floor swiftly and silently over to the nearest hostage, a burly man who, like the others, had a bag pulled over his head.

Dick reached out, ears straining for any sound of an approaching guard, took a hold of the dirty cloth between his fingers, and then pulled.

Dick has just enough time to register a reaction of shocked horror at the balloon, complete with stickers of a clown's nose, big round eyes and grinning mouth, that was where the hostage's head should have been when the balloon popped, spraying him with a tasteless substance that made him choke and gag and his eyes water.

Losing all sense of stealth, Dick fell to his knees, coughing and spluttering, desperately pawing at his eyes to get the substance off. As he breathed, it seemed to snake down his throat into his lungs, clinging like jelly when he tried to inhale. Around him, he heard movement, and though he could not yet see, he was suddenly horrifyingly aware that he was not alone in the room anymore. He heard gaunt footsteps reverberating around the marble room, and felt a shadow fall over him as he struggled to breathe.

Dick turned his head in desperation to come face to face with a pair of plastic-glossed boots, one red, and one black. He gradually heightened his gaze to the pale-as-snow legs that fitted into the boots, that went up and up and up before meeting in a tinny pair of likewise red-and-black snug shorts, themselves set underneath a deathly pale belly and the red-and-black high-top that adorned its wearer. _Oh, no_…was all Dick had the presence of mind to think.

'Ha…Har-Harl…' and then it struck him, 'Har…har…ha…ha…haha…hahaha….hahahahahahahaha!'

_Joker toxin_… Dick remembered thinking before he erupted into fits of hysteria, and heard a high-pitched, giddy New York accent remark 'Night night, Bird-brain!'

The last thing he registered was the mallet slamming down onto his head. He didn't remember much after that.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Of Robins & Crowbars

The first thing he realised was that his wrists hurt.

He remembered laughing; he remembered a balloon and a mallet and a girl, but not much else.

As he steadily came to, sights and sounds began to imprint themselves – the sound of dripping water; a grubby, filthy wall with grease in the cracks between tiles. Then, voices, muffled and distant, a shadowy figure moving somewhere in his periphery.

It was only after an hour or so of this that Dick realised he was lying down. The bed was hard and old and springs were digging into his back. His wrists still hurt; and he realised at length that that was because both of his hands were handcuffed to the bed. He groaned, and after struggling to extricate himself for a minute he slipped back into unconsciousness again.

When he came to, he panicked. He looked down at his body and breathed a sigh of relief that his Nightwing costume was still on. Then he tried twisting his head to rub at the space around his eyes – sure enough, his mask hadn't been removed. _That was strange_, Dick noted. _They've taken me prisoner, but don't seem to care about my identity. I guess I should be thankful_.

The minutes ticked by and bled into hours; Dick remained stoic, not calling out, not allowing himself to worry or fall into the trap of dwelling on his predicament. Bruce had at least taught him that much. Plus, his head no longer hurt – he couldn't account for that. He could have sworn he'd been hit by a mallet before blacking out; surely his head should be in a worse state than ever?

It was only then that he realised his earpiece was gone; someone had removed it after he'd been knocked out. _Clever. That's cut me off from Babs_. The thought of her suddenly sent an unbidden pang of guilt coursing through Dick's stomach. That was when the worry managed to seep in; he wanted to see her again, to tell her all the things he'd been too afraid to tell her. He wanted to see Damian and Bruce and Alfred and Titus; and Tim, whenever he got back from whatever it was he was doing with the Titans at the moment. Suddenly, Dick wanted nothing more than to just be back at Wayne Manor with the Family, laughing and chatting again as they used to do, before this whole sorry mess had unfolded…before the Final Crisis…

…Dick, tied to a rusted old bed in a dingy little tiled room, began to at last despair.

He pulled, and he squirmed, and he wriggled his body against the bed but to no avail. It was only in squirming that he realised his feet were tied down too, otherwise escaping would have been a breeze. _At least I have a fan_, he groaned. _Someone knows me well enough to know what I can do given half a chance_.

His efforts to extricate himself stopped suddenly as he heard footsteps approaching. He held his breath, sinking back into the uncomfortable mattress beneath him, waiting for his captor to appear. It was only as the footsteps grew louder and so more closer that, in a revelatory flash, he suddenly remembered the last words he had been trying to splutter before passing out.

'…Harley Quinn…'

'…that's my name, puddin', don't wear it out!' Suddenly, she was standing in the doorway, pale-skinned, red-and-blue haired, dressed in what Dick remembered from the Bat computer's files as the costume she'd adopted during her stint with the so-called Suicide Squad. The laced top she wore strained against the voluptuous press of her breasts, and didn't come down far enough to cover her perfect navel and lightly toned stomach. Her tight pants were kept up by a belt of bullets but, Dick couldn't help but notice, they hugged her hips so tight she could probably have gone without the belt and been okay.

'Harley…' Dick said again as she came into the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. She had balanced on her shoulders the ridiculous giant mallet she was always so fond of, and now she placed it down in the far corner of the room, bending over in front of Dick as he did so. He swallowed, and averted his gaze sheepishly.

'Y'know, it sucks,' her New York accent broke the awkward silence. 'We didn't set our super duper secret trap for you! We set it for your boss! Robins aren't as scary as bats. In fact, Robins aren't very scary at all. They're just birds.' She turned so that Dick could see her face now, and suddenly there was the light of realisation in her eyes. '…aaaaand birds are dinosaurs! I don't believe it!' she clapped her hands with joy. 'You Bat-people really are a smart bunch. Dinosaurs are _very_ scary.'

Dick, in spite of himself and his present predicament, found himself smiling. 'You play a good game, Harley,' he said gently, 'but I don't think anyone _really_ believes you're as crazy as you'd like us all to think you are.' Then he paused, and added, 'why does my head not hurt?'

'Come again?' Harley's face scrunched up in confusion.

'I've…had a killer migraine all week. Then you knocked me out with that god damn mallet of yours but…my head feels more or less okay.'

'Oh,' Harley smiled, and looked over at the mallet in the corner, 'that wasn't the mallet I hit you with. Oh no. _That_ mallet,' she gestured to the one in the corner, 'is what I'm gonna' hit you with if you don't cooperate. Oh yeah. That's gonna' hurt, Birdbrain. But last night I hit you with my squeaky mallet.'

Dick stared at her. 'Your WHAT?'

'My squeaky mallet,' and when Dick held his gaze, she added, 'oh, yeah. Mr. J's toxin had already pretty much knocked you out. I thought it would amusing to put the icing on the cake though with a little bonk to the head. Didn't you think it was funny? Well, I guess you couldn't, on account of Mr. J's toxin and all…gas masks are really cool. Your voice sounds all creepy and scary. _Nightwing, I am your father!_' she erupted into hysterics where she stood next to the bed. 'Does Batman ever say that to all you Robins in your Batman cave? That would be hilarious. Batman talks a bit like Darth Vader actually…but I guess that's only bias, 'cos Mr. J sounds so much like Luke Skywalker…wow-ee, what a hunk.'

'You know if you don't let me go,' Dick said confidently, ignoring Harley's diatribe of nonsense, 'I'm going to have to hurt you. And you're a nice girl; I really don't want to do that.'

Harley threw her head back and gave a shrill laugh. 'Oh, please, that's cute, Birdbrain. Mr. J has hurt me in ways you _can't even imagine_. You really think the _mallet_ is the business end of that mallet over there? HA! There ain't nothing you'd be willing to do to me that would even give me pause for thought. That's what makes you Robins and Bats so fun. You don't hurt us – not really. But we…oh, baby boy,' Dick flinched as she bent low close to him – her cleavage suddenly tantalisingly close to his face – and rooted for something underneath the bed. She stood back up slowly and held what it was in her hands shimmering inches from Dick's face. He swallowed, and felt the cold pang of fear upend a bucket of ice in his stomach.

It was a crowbar.

'…Mr. J and I sure know howta' hurt _you_.'

'Is it too late to make the joke that this isn't the first time I've woken up tied to a bed in a pretty girl's apartment?' Dick quipped, his mind racing, trying to find a way out of this before Harley's mood turned violent.

Harley laughed. It was a warm, genuine laugh, that caught Dick a little off-balance. 'It's never too late, Birdbrain,' she said, walking back over to the door and peering through the frosted glass. Content at whatever she had seen – or not seen – she spun around, tapping the crowbar to the palm of her hand, grinning menacingly. 'Do you've any idea how long Mr. J's been gone for?' she asked.

Dick was still running through the various scenarios in his head, trying to conceive of a way to escape from this trap and disarm Harley before she could use the crowbar as a weapon. 'Eh…almost a year. Maybe a little over. I can't say I've been exactly holding my breath to see him again.'

A sudden sadness passed over Harley's face. 'That's right…my Mr. J's been gone for over a year…do you know what that's like, Birdbrain?' her eyes scanned up and down Dick's body, and it was only then he saw the lick of hunger in Harley's eyes. Dick suddenly remembered just how tight his Nightwing costume really was, and there was a spark of…anxiety? Fear? _Something…something else_?...in the pit of his stomach. 'A girl's gotta' have what a girl's gotta have, Nightwing,' she said, and let the crowbar slump down by her side. 'When we figured out we'd only got the baby bat, and not the genuine article, sure, the boys were a little upset…but Mr. J taught me howta' turn a frown upside down. The liberal application of a razor blade and a good chuckle can brighten anybody's day,' Harley sighed dreamily, 'but then, he was always a philanthropist.' She swung the crowbar from hand to hand lazily, Dick still fighting against the growing sensation of…_something_…that was building in his belly. 'So after I got rid of them, I was left with the question of what to do with a baby bat chained to my bed,' Harley's eyes did another once-over on Dick, and he felt that same, inexplicable sensation start to creep down nearer to his groin. 'Then I realised! What would I do with _any_ man who was chained to my bed?'

She grinned wickedly, and moved forwards, crawling onto the bed, standing up on her knees in between Dick's splayed legs. 'That's what Mr. J's old faithful is doing here,' she threw the crowbar up into the air, and caught it again. 'Do you know this is the _actual_ crowbar he used to kill your friend, Other Robin? Oh, yeah. This would sell for like…a dollar fifty on eBay or something. Imagine that. SO!' she suddenly whipped the crowbar around, pointing it right in between Dick's legs. He felt his blood run cold. 'What's it gonna' be, Birdbrain? You gonna' cooperate or do I need to get _permanent_? I have a doctorate in psychiatry; but I'm fucked if I know how to perform testicle surgery.'

Dick squirmed, trying to put precious centimetres between himself and the crowbar. He opened his mouth to make a quip, but nothing witty came to mind.

'What's the matter, Birdbrain?' Harley smiled, 'Cat got your tongue, as well as your boss slash creepy father figure's?' she yawned and stretched, and placed the crowbar down to the left of Dick's left leg, nestled between the bed and the wall. 'That would be a shame. Wouldn't want to make a cheater out of you, would we…?' as she spoke, her hands drifted lazily to the front of her top, and began to slowly, casually undo the laces that held it in place.

Dick's senses were suddenly fully alert. 'Harley…what…what are you doing?'

'What's it look like, puddin'?' she shrugged her shoulders, her eyes locking on to Dick's and not letting go. 'A girl gets antsy, her Mr. J bein' away for so long. Gotta' take what we can get!'

'Harley…' Dick tried to squirm his legs free from the chains that bound them, to at least get them free and give him a weapon against Harley. She was between his legs; the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu full-guard position. If he could just get them free…he could control her body with his hips and roll her off the bed…basic Mixed Martial Arts. _But I've no way to free my damn legs_! 'No!' he said sternly.

'Ah, ah, ah!' Harley stopped what she was doing just long enough to stroke the crowbar next to them, slowly, delicately with the tips of her fingers. 'Of all your bodily fluids we're gonna' spill today, brain matter was _not_ one I had in mind, thanks very much.' Then her hands fluttered back to her top and she undid the last of the laces, holding on to both ends of her top as she paused for a second.

Dick tried to swallow, and only then did he realise his mouth was dry. Some part of him…some sick, twisted, demented part of him most boys bury when they're 13 years old…wanted to see her remove it. He wanted…he wanted to see…

'Oh…would you look at that…' a glint shimmered in Harley's eye. 'That costume really _is_ too tight…' Dick realised, following her gaze, he was starting to show signs of arousal that, stuffed into his aerodynamic gymnast's costume as he was, were pretty difficult to hide. Or, rather, impossible. 'Well, well, well,' Harley giggled, 'what would Batman say?'

'Harley…' Dick shook his head, '…don't…this isn't…you can't…'

'A whu-? A who-? A wha-? Sorry, Birdy Boy, can't hear ya,' without warning, Harley whipped off her top, exposing her perfectly round, pale breasts. Dick felt himself go lightheaded – and not from the injury he'd taken a week before either.

Biting her bottom lip seductively, Harley crawled slowly on all fours until she was face-to-face with Dick, her breasts wobbling and bouncing as she moved. He could feel her warm breath on his face now, her black lips parted ever-so-slightly, her tongue pressing up against the back of her teeth. He tried to strain his neck away, but Harley just tutted angrily. 'Crooooowbaaaaaar,' she sung eerily, and Dick suddenly realised with horror that the best chance he had of surviving this…the only way he could ensure he might slip out of these handcuffs_ without_ getting his skull caved in…was…_I cannot believe I am going to say this_, he thought sullenly…to give Harley what she wanted.

There was a pause, with Harley clacking her tongue as if like a clock counting down, and then Dick turned to face her. She smiled – it was a cute, victorious smile that crinkled her little nose – and then put a hand on the back of Dick's head, leaned in, and kissed him.


End file.
